The artist's hunger

My father's first job upon emigrating from Taiwan 20-some years ago was to unload freight from those gigantic cargo containers you see at major seaports. Adding his income to the pittance my mom earned part-timing at the diaper factory, my parents saved just barely enough to entertain the idea of having a child. What they couldn't predict, however, was that I would be born nearly two months early, requiring an expensive, three-week stay in the neonatal intensive care unit. Somehow, my parents pulled together enough cash to pay off the hospital bills; my mom dropped out of high school, in part because she needed to work full-time to sustain our family.

Seventeen and a high school dropout, my mom worked up the courage to borrow $10,000 from the bank to start a small computer company with my father. Ten years later, the company became one of the leading distributors of notebook computers in the nation, in competition for the same bid that made Michael Dell a household name. Just as the company was about to go public, however, it was hit by a lawsuit from its major overseas vendor, which blamed my parents for defaulting on payments for dead, unsalable parts. A decade of fighting and several million dollars in lawyer fees may have saved the corporation from its downfall, but two years of sleepless nights spent worrying about deposition statements and possible bankruptcy left my parents ready to sell the company to save enough money to put my brother and me through school.

When I got into Princeton, it seemed as though their sacrifice had paid off. The Big Envelope paved me an orange-and-black road to law school, after which I would earn six figures a year - enough to repay my now-unemployed parents for a lifetime of privilege.

Justice would be restored, and I, like countless immigrant children before me, would fulfill my filial obligation to make my parents proud.

 As I stare at the barely used LSAT books growing dusty in the neglected corner of my room, I can't help but wonder if I'm squandering my share of the American dream. I remember very keenly a conversation during freshman week in which I was ridiculed by a fellow Taiwanese American for not being "Asian enough" because I didn't want to study science or engineering. As it is, I think I'm the only junior sociology major with East Asian blood, and I often wonder if I have somehow betrayed my heritage by choosing a "soft" major that doesn't lead to the hallowed halls of Goldman Sachs.

 I have never properly regarded myself as an artist. In fact, I have been taught to scoff at the idea that anybody could make a living by doing what they like. Life, in my parents' worldview, is a process of sustained suffering, whereby the successful reap the rewards of their anguish in the form of BMWs and Caribbean cruises. Artists suffer for their craft. Like Kafka's archetype, they starve themselves to death in the pursuit of misbegotten visions of transcendence. Art is something you do to get yourself into college, not what you rely on to pay the bills.

During a year off from Princeton, I worked as a sales executive for a mass distributor of blank DVDs. You know that person you want to tell to go shoot themselves when they call trying to sell you something you don't want? That was me. I had accounts ranging from a Brazilian bootlegger to a belligerent drunk who would yell at me for an hour before buying anything. Aside from teaching me how to sell a B-grade product, the job was quite meaningless. The only saving grace was that my boss wanted the company's website redesigned. I went to Barnes & Noble, bought myself a book on web design and created what I thought was a masterpiece. In retrospect, it was terrible, but from that moment on, I've been hooked on graphic design. Unable to draw or paint to save my life, I found myself slowly capable of using Photoshop as my canvas and my laptop touchpad as my brush.

At Princeton, I spend about five nights a week making or editing posters for the Student Design Agency. Like Kafka's hunger artist, I am a slave to graphic design because I do not know anything else more fulfilling. I know it may seem pathetic, but setting type on a poster in a perfectly aligned way or creating the ideal visual for an event poster seriously makes me happy. I work with artists and visionaries whose talents far exceed my own, and I despair when I realize how stunningly mediocre I am at something I love so much.

My better sense tells me that I should take the LSAT and go to law school in attempt to fulfill my parents' expectations because I am a coward. Squandering your future is an unspeakable sin. Your parents have suffered too much for you to just throw it all away. You will spend your life chasing a fantasy. You will look back and see that your entire existence has meant nothing.

On some level, we're all at Princeton because we "aspire" to a standard of greatness that lies in unabashedly following our individual bliss. At the same time, we are here because we are used to conforming to institutionalized markers of success - a reason, perhaps, why so many Princeton grads go directly into finance. To those people that truly love making spreadsheets and PowerPoints, more power to them, but I just don't think I can do that.

This may be misguided naivete speaking, but I fear living a life that does not belong to me more than I fear the artist's starvation or my parents' censure. They have given up their lives for my sake - let me not sacrifice my own.